Why is this behavior okay for business and not for us?

michael59

Celestial
I am disabled. I receive a monthly payment from Canada Pension Disability and another smaller amount from a provincial program called Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped. I live in subsidized housing that states I am only entitle to rent a 1 bedroom apartment or a bachelor suite. It's a long story but, I was forced to move in here. I had no other option.

When I first moved here 12 years ago, the rent included:

-all utilities
-cable TV.
-one parking stall.
-a full library on the 4th floor
-gym equipment for all the tenants to use.
-a storage room on each floor that we had a key for.
-lots of common spaces where we could go sit and converse with others.
-you had to have a criminal background check before moving in.
-you had to sign a form that was like an affidavit that said you had no bed bugs or cockroaches and there were none in the residence where you were moving from.
-there was a Christmas dinner served up to the tenants every year.
-you had to be at least 50 years old to live here.

It was how they justified making me pay 64% of my monthly disability income to live there.

Every single one of those "perks" has been taken away. Without even so much as a notice. The only notices we received were 30 days to remove our belongings out of storage or they would be disposed of and the cable company sent notice through the mail offering us free hook-up transfers if we wanted to continue using their service. They'll let anyone move in here now including bed bugs and cockroaches. Although, they do fumigate as soon as they receive a report.

And yet the rent increases every couple of years.

I have never missed a rent payment nor have I ever been late paying rent for the 1st day of each month. Some tenants have and when I asked they told me that we had until the 5th of every month to pay and after that it was a fine of $75 a day. :shocked:

Why do they get to do that? Shouldn't they have had to reimburse me by lowering the rent with each perk that they remove?

__________________________

I am a member of Alberta Motor Association. I pay a yearly membership fee.

The Alberta Motor Association (AMA) partners of CAA & AAA serving Albertans with Roadside Assistance, Insurance, Membership Rewards, Travel Bookings & more.

One of those "perks" is that I can call them and they will come to where ever my car is at the time and test the battery. If said battery needs changing, they will do this for a small fee plus the cost of the new battery. They even deduct the recycling fee for the old battery.

Last week I called to get a new battery installed and after talking to a computer voice over the phone for 15 minutes it finally put me through to a live person because it could not understand what it is that I wanted. When I was put through I was told by another computer voice that all agents were busy and the wait time was up to 2 hours or I could press 1 and they will call me back when it is my turn. I pressed 1. The call was returned in 15 minutes.

Kerry, the agent told me that AMA was overwhelmed by the amount of service calls they have been receiving because of the cold weather so, they have suspended battery testing/installing new batteries for the time being, but I can take my car to Lube City and they will install a new battery for me and if there is any difference in the cost AMA will reimburse me. When I said, okay so how do I get the car there when the battery is dead? She went silent. Will AMA give me a boost? She said, there is a 3 day waiting list for a battery boost.

This is a massive corporation that spans all over Canada and the United States. This is Alberta. It gets cold every fucking year, especially in January and February. Why aren't they prepared?

As far as I know, nowhere in my membership agreement does it stipulate that if AMA is feeling overwhelmed, too bad for me, I'm on my own.

I've been paying my membership fee on time in full every year since 1996 and this is the treatment I get for being a loyal customer? Why do they get to do that?
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Well, shit. Come on down illegally because if you do we'll just hand you everything. Assuming you're on the 'preferred' list: those with European ancestry need not apply.

This probably doesn't help but I keep one of these fully charged in my truck and it has come in handy. It'll turn over an ice cold V8. There are much smaller ones these days, I have neve used one and am typically skeptical. In your area I'd keep it inside my warm apartment. Or keep a spare battery. One warm day maybe have a look and see how to do it, not too hard. I realize you may have some physical challenges but it really is easy. To me, subscription services like AAA or AMA are useless.
upload_2022-1-10_4-3-50.jpeg
 

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
Well, shit. Come on down illegally because if you do we'll just hand you everything. Assuming you're on the 'preferred' list: those with European ancestry need not apply.

This probably doesn't help but I keep one of these fully charged in my truck and it has come in handy. It'll turn over an ice cold V8. There are much smaller ones these days, I have neve used one and am typically skeptical. In your area I'd keep it inside my warm apartment. Or keep a spare battery. One warm day maybe have a look and see how to do it, not too hard. I realize you may have some physical challenges but it really is easy. To me, subscription services like AAA or AMA are useless.
View attachment 15780
Preaching the Truth, Times are really bad for the ahem, "light skinded people" .. I won't be very Vocal about it, But, Damn, Our culture has been Systematically destroyed, We aren't even allowed to feel any sense of pride or accomplishment for white culture. IT's a hate crime to even notice our culture fading away..

you know, because even though every culture has a history of blood on its hands, somehow, the middle-aged caucasian, is the real problem with the world...

Anyway.. Just thinking out loud..... carry on..
 
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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
white culture

Probably thread hijacking but I'm not sure what that is exactly but I understand what you are getting at. There certainly are persistent stereotypes.

Political operatives have inflamed existing racial divides deliberately over the past few years. It's obvious. This nonsense that Biden just spewed about voter rights went over like a fart in church as does that cackling idiot vice president we have.
Cultural divides are not going to be settled by old white men passing arbitrary legislation; that reeks of gratuitous noblesse oblige.
 

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
Probably thread hijacking but I'm not sure what that is exactly but I understand what you are getting at. There certainly are persistent stereotypes.

Political operatives have inflamed existing racial divides deliberately over the past few years. It's obvious. This nonsense that Biden just spewed about voter rights went over like a fart in church as does that cackling idiot vice president we have.
Cultural divides are not going to be settled by old white men passing arbitrary legislation; that reeks of gratuitous noblesse oblige.
It's really hard to ascribe Because to speak of these things one would have to realize that social injustice really does exist in today's world., So some cultures can have certain restrictions socially upon them that others do not, People speak of social equality and they will fight tooth and nail pretending it really exists Because it's a very pretty idea. But social equality won't truly exist until all "governments and regions "are treated equally. Regardless of their race or ethnicity. As you so eloquently put it, Europeans need not apply for benefits. This was hinting at a real problem that isn't just a matter of social injustice. This is a practice in which governments favor people to supply benefits to those people based solely on the color of their skin. This should prove to anyone beyond doubt that "racism" on a fundamental level exists everywhere, even in the highest forms of office.
 
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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Things have changed quite a bit since I was a kid. White culture - had to laugh at that one - got flashbacks to the Bradys doing musical numbers, John Wayne's speaking albums and Dean Martin roasts.

Ahmad Arbery was essentially a lynching. Very descriptive term even if they shot him to death. Botham Jean shot to death for the crime of being black and eating ice cream. George Floyd. Ugh. All very real, very current. I've heard the other side of the coin explained that black people are far more likely to commit crime, especially violent crime, than anyone else and that's where the whole racial profiling by police comes in. You want to talk culture? I just heard about another shooting somewhere at a rap concert that hasn't quite taken my thoughts off Astroworld although the news cycle has already forgotten it. HOW many rappers have died violently in 2021 alone? If I noticed probably a few.

No clue except to say obviously there's is a problem and the only hope I might have had is that the little children growing up now might get past a lot of it. Time healing all wounds, etc. But listening to the garbage being peddled by our leadership right now casts doubt on that and pisses me off. You want to go looking for reasons why this situation is as such in the US right now take a good look at the Democratic Party, the Southern white democratic voting block in particular that propagated segregation to the bitter end. George Wallace is a very, very interesting character that Biden seems to have just invoked. Democrat, more an opportunist.

I don't see the current incarnation of any political party doing anything other than using the conditon(s) to enrich themselves. Everybody does - that's what Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have been doing, to name a few. 'Hymietown' and 'there won't be no Hadasa in the White House.' Indeed. Rephrase that with those choice words you can't say and see what the reaction is. Free kicks to Asians and Jews. This is why I think the problem will have to fade slowly as all of us old ****ers die off. We'll all be speaking Spanish as a first language long before that.

Obvious ploy, which is why Biden's speeches fell flat in GA and why we won't overlook that a vice president should actually be qualified to lead for reasons other than skin color or genitals.
 
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michael59

Celestial
Although you are both correct and I agree with both of you, it's not what I was referring to. I do want to thank you for pointing out the fact that I was not clear on what point I was trying to make. :)

I'm talking about contractual agreement. When you sign on the dotted line, it means you agree to the terms stated and you must honor that agreement. You cannot change your mind without consequence unless both parties agree to the changes. I signed an agreement with my bank, CIBC, 36 years ago when I opened an account. Even though the account I have no longer exists, they still honor the agreement and even though I no longer qualify for the sizable overdraft I have with the account since becoming disabled and having a much smaller income, they honor the agreement we signed and will not take it away from me.

An even more recent example of this is Nivek's agreement with the domain host pawning off the email side of their hosting to Microsoft without his say or input, they changed the agreement.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
I'm talking about contractual agreement

Contracts are abrogated every day and lawyers make a living from it.

My mom was disabled and on public assistance for the last ten years of her life. An out of state aunt was also on public assistance. They had clean, warm decent private apartments to live in and in one case even provided some nice amenities. I can't even imagine what it would be like to somehow challenge them over a contractual breach - my mom got caught up in just such a breach with the county and believe me, that sort of things only goes in one direction.

Very likely even if you could get someone to listen to you it sounds like the answer would come wrapped in bureaucratic crap that would mean that even if they acknowledged it won't do anything about it anyway.

bugs haven't gone anywhere after the photo op
Gov. Cuomo outraged after visiting bug-infested NYCHA apartment: 'Worse than anyone would even imagine'
 
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